Gould Wild Turkey, least known of 5 wild turkey species

[Gus Hallgren]

Hi, While visiting Ramsay Canyon, AZ last September we ran across a flock of wild turkeys at 11:55 AM. We stalked them for about 10 minutes and finally caught sight of a few in a clearing and got a few photographs. Thought they were regular wild turkeys, except a little larger than the ones we usually see in Madera Canyon, AZ. Met a woman on the way back on the road, and she told us they were "Gould Wild Turkey." Looked for them in several bird books without success, however, we found this on Google
"The least known of the five wild turkey subspecies is the Gould's or Mexican wild turkey. It is a turkey found in the mountains of northern Mexico with a few in the U.S. in portions of Arizona and New Mexico along the Mexico / U.S. border. It was first described by J. Gould in 1856 during his travels in Mexico and aptly named for him."
http://www.wildturkeyzone.com/wildturkey/goulds.htm (http://www.wildturkeyzone.com/wildturkey/goulds.htm)
It was a bit of a lark following these stately birds, and here is one of the 2 males we got a photo of. Had my Olympus E-500 (No IS) zuiko 150mm (300 equiv) 3.5, and holding it on the run (Slow for me) using AP 1/1000 F:7.1 ISO 200 CWA Auto WB. Lots of fun for me and Gina.

[George DeCamp]

Hey Gus!

Man that looks like a BIG Turkey! Good for you to have chased him down for the image you have here. If it were me I would leave a little more room around the bird. You caught a really nice pose here with the feathers all fluffed and the tail all spread out nicely...kudos to you for that! Seems the blacks are a little dark especially on top maybe it was the side light you had? Also maybe it is me but could use a little sharpening as well.

Thanks for posting this species, it's a new one for me!!

[Gus Hallgren]

George, Thanks for looking at the photo and for your suggestions. Agree with you 100%. I guess I could lighten the top black with a Cuves adjustment layer? However, any sharpening seemed too much. As it turned out when I posted it on Webshots, a couple of Wild Turkey clubs & Websites asked permission to use it. Appreciate you taking the time to critique our photos. later Gus

[Judd Patterson]

Gus, that's a great piece of natural history information. I had never heard of the Gould's subspecies before. I agree that it would be nice to have a little more detail in the blacks. If this was taken as a RAW image, you might be able to accomplish that by simply increasing the "Fill" setting in Adobe Camera RAW. If this was a JPEG from the camera, then I'd probably select the blacks using the "Color Range" command, feathering the selection slightly, and then a curves layer. Just don't overdue it as the you can really introduce a lot of noise and strange stuff if you try to go too far when there just isn't any information to restore.